As the holidays approach, Jonathan Cruz and his family struggle to come to grips with a streak of freak misfortune.

Four years ago, Cruz tumbled from a ladder at work, mangling his feet in a fall that left him unable to work for months. Then, on Father’s Day 2018, he was sucked into a boat’s propeller off Elliott Key in another freak accident.

After weeks in a coma, and more than 30 surgeries, Cruz’s upper right leg is missing most muscles. His left leg is wracked by pain around the clock. The 29-year-old Cutler Bay man shuffles along with a walker and can expect many more surgeries.

But those will have to wait because of another devastating medical emergency.

One year to the day after his boating accident, doctors delivered more grim news: His 4-year-old son, Jonathan Jr., is suffering from leukemia.

This holiday season will be unlike any other for the Cruz family. Jonathan Jr., as he has since his diagnosis, will spend the foreseeable future sequestered at Nicklaus Children’s Hospital, recovering from rounds of chemotherapy and preparing for a bone-marrow transplant in mid-December.

“Everything was a blur. I had a lot of anger. I was mad at the world,” Cruz said of the day he learned of his son’s cancer. “We’re never going to find the answer to why. We just have to move forward.”

For Jonathan Cruz and his wife, Jessica Cruz, frustration has given way to their new reality — a dizzying schedule of raising two 4-year-old twins, one at their Cutler Bay home, the other at the hospital in Coral Gables. The Cruzes are hoping that this holiday season, Wish Book readers will donate gift cards to help pay for food, and gas needed for the long trips to and from the hospital.

“Clothes for the kids would also be amazing,” said Jessica Cruz, 30.

And Jonathan Cruz, who is permanently disabled and labors to get around as he helps care for his children, is also in need of rollator — a walker with wheels that has a seat to rest on.

Just a few years ago, the family’s challenges seemed unthinkable. The couple’s plans were unfolding quite nicely.

He ran a small South Miami-Dade air-conditioning repair company with a growing clientele. Jessica Cruz was studying at Florida International University, eventually wanting to become a speech therapist. As they saved money to buy a house, where they want to raised their twins, Jonathan Jr. and Janelys.

The problems started when Cruz fell from a ladder at a client’s house. His feet suffered devastating breaks — doctors inserted an array of plates and screws. The recovery kept him sidelined — and unable to work — for about six months. The family was forced to live on savings.

By the summer of 2018, Cruz’s body was healed. As they did often, the family joined a cousin on his boat to celebrate Father’s Day. They anchored about 100 feet off Elliott Key, a popular sandbar party spot, tying up to a boat owned by an acquaintance.

On June 17, 2018, the day was typical: Latin music, swimming and grilling churrasco and burgers. By the afternoon, the water turned choppy. They began packing up.

Because of the low tide, the boat they were tied to was stuck in the sand. Cruz and his cousin offered to wade to the back of the boat and pull the 27-foot Grady boat owned by Victor Fonseca.

But suddenly, Cruz heard a noise of a 250-horsepower engine revving. “I just remember getting sucked in,” Cruz said.

As the propeller tore through his flesh, everything became a blur. He remembers horrified screams. The music shut off. “Stay up stay up!” somebody yelled.

By chance, an off-duty Miami-Dade firefighter paramedic, Terrance Dolan, happened to be at the scene. He used towels to staunch the bleeding, while calling 911.

Cruz was eventually airlifted to Jackson Memorial’s Ryder Trauma Center, where he remained in a medically induced coma for a couple weeks. He wound up hospitalized for six months, undergoing dozens of surgeries to reconstruct his leg and rectum.

“This injury took place in the water, and so there is a high risk for infection that adds to the insult from the initial traumatic injury,” Jackson Dr. Joyce Kaufman told reporters months later.

The recovery process was slow and agonizing. He can longer use the bathroom normally, and has to wear a colostomy bag. The muscles in his upper right leg are pretty much all gone — he’s also missing five inches of his femur. The nerve damage on his left side was extensive. It feels like needles are burrowing in his foot constantly.

“I’ll probably be with a cane or a walker the rest of my life,” Cruz said.

The aftermath took a toll on his family. His wife, Jessica, had to drop out of school to help care for her husband and children. Janelys, their daughter, began losing hair from the stress of her father’s ordeal.

The couple also noticed Jonathan Jr. was suffering. By December 2018, he was growing listless and gaunt, bags growing under his eyes. His appetite vanished. He was wracked by nose bleeds and fever.

Early in 2019, Jessica Cruz was growing more frustrated. The hemoglobin in his blood was dangerously low. Because of her husband’s ordeal, Jessica Cruz had become an expert on white-blood counts, platelets and hemoglobin levels — and she knew something major was wrong with her son.

Jessica Cruz pressed doctors for more tests. It was finally in June that doctors confirmed Jonathan Jr. had leukemia. He needed to be hospitalized and treated immediately.

Since June, the boy has been hospitalized at Nicklaus Children’s Hospital pretty much nonstop.

He’s undergone four rounds of chemotherapy to try and wipe out his bone marrow. In October, he underwent a cord blood stem cell transplant, a procedure designed to restore the child’s ability to make blood and immune cells. It did not work.

“His body just didn’t accept it,” Jessica Cruz said.

The next step: a bone-marrow transplant surgery late this month. The donor is Jessica’s Cruz’s brother.

The toll on Jonathan Jr.’s body has been terrible.

Over the months, his liver and spleen have grown enlarged, and he’s urinated blood clots. He’s had to take powerful morphine, which was also a challenge to ween off. Because of his weakened immune system, he can’t have many visitors, save his parents and medical staff — he hasn’t seen his sister in person for months.

Hospital staff and charities try to help cheer up his day. On Halloween, Jonathan Jr. wanted to dress as Woody from “Toy Story,” although he was too sick to but on anything but the cowboy hat.

One foundation beings him toys and arts and crafts. His mother draws spaceships and superheroes on the windows of his room.

On a recent day, Jonathan Jr. was looking through his mother’s phone and saw an old photo of himself. “I had so much hair. I don’t understand what happened,” the boy told her.

“How do you explain it?” Jessica Cruz said. “He knows he’s sick, but he doesn’t really know how sick ... It’s hard seeing a 4-year-old go through what’s going through. There’s only so much he can understand.”

The parents alternate weeks at a time, one sleeping on a couch in the hospital room, the other staying with Janelys at home.

Back in Cutler Bay, where the family lives with Cruz’s parents, Jonathan Cruz does his best to care for Janelys. He’s begun driving again, to pick her up from her pre-kindergarten classes, and begun lifting weights for his upper body.

Cruz hasn’t been able to do much physical therapy. He still relies on powerful medication to manage the pain. Recent cold weather exacerbated the toe cramps in his left left.

“But what my son,” Cruz said, ‘is going through is 100 times worse, more painful.”

HOW TO HELP

Wish Book is trying to help hundreds of families in need this year. To donate, pay securely at MiamiHerald.com/wishbook. For information, call 305-376-2906 or email wishbook@miamiherald.com. (The most requested items are often laptops and tablets for school, furniture, and accessible vans.) Read more at MiamiHerald.com/wishbook.

This story was originally published December 1, 2019 at 6:00 AM.